ABSTRACT
Although the fact that he failed to find certain things when he looked inwardly is not, if I am right, crucial to Hume's position, I must concede that Hume constantly referred to himself in the course of his investigations. He admitted that he found himself in a "labyrinth" about personal identity; yet if a definite problem rather than mere incoherence is to emerge from his investigations, this self-reference evidently must be eliminable from the line of thought he pursued. I remarked that, instead of saying, "I observed no self" or "For my part, no self was observed," Hume could have said, "No self was observed." It is arguable, however, that the verb "observed" actually connotes a successful activity on the part of some conscious subject. If this is right, it is a verbal truth that, if something is observed, someone observed it. Consequently, if Hume or anyone else seriously doubts that a conscious subject exists and wishes to speak of the world without mentioning any such subject, he or she must not use verbs like "observes" - or even "thinks", "finds", and "experiences." This is a crucially important point because if all such verbs are off limits for a skeptical philosopher, a skeptical view of the self (and possibly even the external world) may not be coherently expressible or comprehensible.
